Skip to main content

From story telling to trusting God


Today we were privileged to have David B. to share some updates at the rally. Haven’t heard his sharing for quite some time (I think almost a decade more), today sharing was quite inspiring and interesting. As he returned to Singapore, he’s been thinking how to move the gospel effectively. There are two platforms he has in mind: a muslim-christian dialogue and story telling. Well, he shared the latter part (maybe we will have chance to hear the former in near future?).

The thought of story telling began when he and his discovered that the way of his bible study sharing was monotonous and boring. So to make things interesting, one must tell story, like Jesus told story when he was teaching. And he joined a story telling club, which at that time most of the members were female. Not surprising as most storytellers are mothers and early childhood educators.  

Later on, the group joined a story telling competition. Other contestants chose popular Chinese fore-lore but David chose to tell his own real life story. Now here’s the story within the story.

In 1980, he was chosen to attend a conference in USA. He wanted his wife to join him. But they were ashamed to ask for fund raising for his wife air ticket. Of course, would you give to someone for leisure purpose. So he began to pray that God would open a door for him to get a free ticket. An idea came. There was a Monopoly tournament to be held in Singapore soon. The winner would be sponsored to Bermuda to compete in Monopoly World Tournament. So he signed up for the Monopoly Asia Tournament. And he practised. Played six rounds of Monopoly and did the post-mortem after each round. Now we now what he was good at.

To cut story short, he won the tournament. He got a sponsored ticket. But he did not want it. It would be better if they prize him in cash so that we could buy the airline ticket as he wish. He prayed. The other thing was, the tournament would be held in December while the conference would be held in coming March. So he asked that the tournament would be postponed to the date near the conference. These two requests were answered.

So what does it take for an effective prayer? I see that there should be a genuine request and it comes with faith. And of course if that's according to God's view.

 By the way, he didn't win the Monopoly tournament. He got the last place. That was not God's purpose  for him to win. That story opened the door for faith sharing among the club members.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The wedding of ....

This wedding has some similarity with ours but, by comparison in every detail, each is still distinctly unique.
Post a Comment
Read more

Kumano Kodo - Day 2

After a good rest, I departed for Hosshimon-oji. The hotel provided free transit to the Hongu area, so I saved some time waiting for the bus. The plan for the day was a 7 km walk from Hosshimon-oji to Oyunohara. Since my next lodging was in the Yunomine Onsen area, I decided to add an extra walk from Oyunohara to Yunomine Onsen, which was about 2.2 km. At Hosshimon-oji, the trail is essentially a connecting route to the Takijiri trail. The previous stamping station was about 800 meters from Hosshimon-oji, so I made a detour to Inohana-oji. That detour added approximately 1.6 km to my journey, taking about 30 minutes or more. From Hosshimon-oji (after detouring via Inohana-oji), I started walking toward Hongu Taisha, which was about a 2.5-hour walk. Along the way, I stopped to rest and take photos. It was quite a leisurely walk. Part of the trail is paved, while the rest consists of forest paths lined with cypress trees (I guess). By the time I reached the town around Hongu Taisha, it w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kumano Kodo - Day 1

Just came back from Osaka last week. It was my personal and solo trip of the year. There were only two main focuses of the trip — the Kumano Kodo and the Expo 2025 Osaka. Let me share my experience from the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage. Well, it felt more like a hike in my local hills. I chose a 4-day, 3-night walk with a boat trip included. This route was the simplest, covering only about 7 km of walking (though I added some extra distance for personal exploration). It was Route 3 of the Nakahechi route. By collecting 10 stamps along this route (at designated stamping points), I should be eligible for the Dual Pilgrim certificate if I complete the last 100 km on foot of the Camino de Santiago in Portugal. All my accommodations and packed lunches were arranged through the official Kumano Travel website. Although the booking response was a bit slow, I managed to receive confirmation about 2 or 3 weeks before my flight.  To get to the Kumano area, I took a train (Kuroshio limited express) ...
Post a Comment
Read more